Literature Discussion Group: A whole book about an ominous stare?

13 February 2014

A whole book about an ominous stare?

No! You must be thinking of King Leer.

The book we're reading next is King Lear, which is considered by many to be Shakespeare's greatest -- and most complex -- play, but hey, you guys can handle it. Especially with a little help from your friends (your fellow Lit Groupers and the Internet).

The Five-Step Program

Here are five steps, all optional, which should help you read, understand, and hopefully even enjoy King Lear.

Check them out, and then take a look at your assignment, below.

STEP ONE: Get the low down. Read as much (or as little) of this summary from the good folks at Shmoop.com* as you need to get your feet under you before you start.

STEP TWO: Check back with Shmoop's scene by scene summaries whenever you find yourself wondering, "What was that all about?" The nice thing about these summaries is that they stick to the facts -- exactly what happens, as it happens -- with no spoilers or lengthy analyses.

STEP THREE: Enjoy the language. Sure, it's sometimes difficult to understand, but where else (other than in Shakespeare) are you going to find such amazing insults as this one, in which one character in King Lear describes another as "a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue"? Answer: Nowhere.

Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen) as Lear.

STEP FOUR: Watch the play! It's available free online from PBS with none other than Gandalf in the title role.

STEP FIVE: Assist yourself in the reading of the play by finding a No Fear Shakespeare version of Lear, which will have the original text side-by-side with a modern interpretation for easy reference.

One caution: if you choose this route, don't forsake the original Shakespeare! If you read only the modern interpretation of the language, you'll lose a lot of what makes Shakesepeare, well, Shakespeare. Yes, the plots are interesting and the themes are universal, but it's the language that has set Shakespeare apart all these years, so don't ignore it.

Okay. Following one or more of these steps should help you get the most out of the play. Now for your assignment.

Yes, there's an Assignment!

And here it is:

Choose a "speech" from King Lear (and I'm defining speech here as an uninterrupted quote from one character of at least 10 lines), memorize it, and recite it for us at our meeting on March 4th. Then explain what it means and why you chose it.

I realize that for some of you the very thought of memorizing and reciting a passage like this might inspire fear, sweaty palms, and an urge to call-in sick, but you know what? That's all the more reason to give this a shot. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

We're a friendly group, and we'll be supportive no matter what. Seriously. Picture your fellow lit-groupers. It's a pretty mellow bunch, and no one's going to judge you. This is a really safe place to give recitation a try. Really. Safe. (Really.)
I'll be on hand to offer you cues if you forget a line or lose your place.
Practice makes perfect, or at least pretty close to it. So choose your lines, find a private space (or a supportive parent or sibling), and recite. Over and over and over. The more you do it, the more able you'll be to do it on auto-pilot. Or in your sleep. Or upside down and backwards. Or however you want. And the less scary it will be.

That's it. Happy reading, and I'll see you on the 4th!

* In the interests of full disclosure, I freelance for Shmoop. Just so you know. I didn't write any of the Lear stuff, but I've done other guides, mostly for teachers.

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Looking For Hamlet Scholar Talk

This is another event at the PPL in March in honor of the First Folio Exhibit, and it's on Wednesday, March 9th from 12-1:30pm in the Rines Auditorium.

"Focusing on Hamlet, University of Southern Maine Professor Ben Bertram will examine the way editors, directors, actors, teachers, and scholars choose among folio, quarto, or conflated versions of the plays. He will also be accompanied by actors who will perform Hamlet’s soliloquies and join in a discussion of how Shakespeare’s words make it from the page to the stage."

Get the full description here.

Definitions and Clarifications

pneumatic, adj. - literally, full of air. This term is often used to describe women in BNW, and seems to suggest that a woman like Lenina, who's "wonderfully pneumatic," is buxom, curvy, shapely, and yes, even bouncy. But pneumatic could also have a second meaning here, and that is to indicate that someone is a bit of an air-head, light on the intellectual matter, or not bogged down by weighty matters or considerations.

viviparous, adj. - a creature that is viviparous gives birth to live young that develop inside the body, as in the way mammals reproduce. Humans are viviparous (at least, they were until A.F. 632).

Malthusian, adj. - based on the beliefs of Robert Thomas Malthus, a British economist who argued that "population tends to increase faster than food supply, with inevitably disastrous results unless the increase in population is checked by moral restraints or by war, famine, and disease." - The Free Dictionary

Pavlovian Conditioning, n. - also called Classic Conditioning, it's a way of getting a subject to make certain associations between two previously unrelated things; Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was the psychologist who discovered that if he always rang a bell right before feeding his dogs, they came to associate the sound of the bell with getting fed, and therefore would start to drool upon hearing the bell. Here's a great comic related to that experiment.

Literature Discussion Group

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